Easter Smoothstepper sale for members

Hi all,

to spread the Easter cheer ":grumpy:" and since many of us are looking at spending some time in the workshop; I thought I would offer a discount to the forum member on the Ethernet Smoothstepper packages on my website.

3 header to LPT connector cables, 1 CAT6 ethernet cable and of course the ESS for a total of £170 including recorded delivery.

The page for the sale is cleverly not visible through normal navigation, in the hope that only forum members will know about it.

Go to deal page

Stock is limited for pre Easter delivery but I am sure I can sort you out with the same discount after Easter.



Any questions feel free to ask.

erm *blush*

what advantages are there for a smooth stepper ?

Hi Blackrat,

Hoe gaan dit?

Simply put the Smoothstepper is a replacement for the parallel port (as you may already know). It receives motion commands from Mach3 (or 4 soon) and interprets them into step/direction or quadrature.This was previously done by the special parallel port driver that is shipped with Mach3. The speed and smoothness that it can do this is pretty impressive.
If you were to think of the board as a LPT replacement, the USB allows you to have 2 full parallel port and a few extra pins while the ethernet one is like having 3 parallel ports. This give you many input output pins to connect stuff up to.

You of course need the stepper motor or servo drivers to connect to. The Smoothstepper only control the input/output signals.

Personally I have found it to be the most cost effective semi plug and play solution. I say semi as you will need to install a plugin and tune it slightly.

If you have more specific questions I will try my best to answer them.

Totsiens. (We left Durban in '91)

im using the dmm servo kit and have read good reports on using a smooth stepper

im not sure whats involved in wiring this in, does or can it replace the current BOB ? or does it just connect to the BOB via parallel port connector ?

i need to replace the PC that im using to one that doesnt have a p/port ....

also i wish to purchase a pendant just to make life easier to clock up ... how does that wire in ?

ek was in daai selfde koue land vir die laasde tien jaar , die somer was lekka maar hel die winter was KUK <-- and my afr has gone down the tubes

Koue land indeed!

The smooth stepper actually replaces the need to have a parallel port. You plug in the Ethernet cable from the computer and then a ribbon cable from the smoothstepper to the BOB just like you would normally with the printer port. You could think, simplistically, that it is 3 external parallel ports stacked on one board. In terms of reliability, compared to the parallel port, you will see the difference straight away.

The only extra wiring you will need to do is get 5V to the smoothstepper.

You can run a pendant on the smoothstepper but there is not much documentation and I have not bothered to run one on there personally. The real draw back is how Mach3 deals with the pendant internally, Mach4 may fix that but I have not migrated there yet. What I did do though was buy a pendant from Vistacnc, the P4-SE . It is very well built and plugs into the USB, not had issues with it at all. You can even use it to mill with.

regards

im looking at this one

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/161718447668?lpid=82

going to see whats involved ...

They are pretty plug and play. You install the software and set it up just like any other mach3 plugin. The chap has done a stellar job.

I'm looking to buy an Ethernet smoothstepper and was wondering if you going to have a Christmas sale.